Minneapolis in Photos

Warming up. The kids before setting personal best times for the 5k on Saturday. Yes, Rainer did run the 5k with Tias on Saturday and then the marathon with me on Sunday. He’s got legs, man.

at the finishing line on Sunday

almost done, completely happy

I’m surprised by how good I look in these photos. I had been dealing with knee and hip pain for 3 hours at this point and felt pretty haggard.

Seeing the finishing line from the cathedral and then seeing the kids: two wonderful moments of lift I’d been waiting for.

Medals and finishers T shirts from the race organizers, Ritter Sport chocolate from the family

Post race. No shoes. Poor toes.

Why I had such trouble with blisters and with my left leg, I can’t say. I changed nothing from my training.

Waiting and waiting for the taxi to take us back to the hotel

I really wanted to be there already

It’s heavy. And utterly gorgeous. Rainer’s right, though. You train and train, and worry, and plan. Then suddenly it’s over. Yes, it took nearly 5 hours. But think: by lunch time it was over.

Gold! Tour of the capitol building nets Tias a free sample of leftover gold leaf from the repairs to the golden horses atop the front.

Rainer’s parents flew into Minneapolis to meet us. We had a fun 5 days before we took the train back to Rugby, ND. They traveled on in the minivan, driving to Florida via Boston and the autumnal colours of New England.

The statue garden at the modern art gallery.

Projection of parachute training projected inside a plane at the Minnesota History Center. One of the best museums I’ve been in. They didn’t generalize. They used particular people, their objects, their stories. And so of course the affect was much more emotional. This approach made the historical events important – from the person, to the sweep of history. We are social creatures after all.

pinball at the museum soda shop exhibit of “The Greatest Generation”

I loved how additional information on growing up in the 30s and 40s was put into ‘menus’ on the tables. All over the museum they found clever ways to work information into the displays, even lighting a slideshow of photos inside a table, the photos taking the place of two of the china plates.

StevenBe’s yarn shop. As fabulous a post-marathon reward as a knitter could wish. Steven even entertained the kids and Rainer with tales of his designs, including the Rod Stewart sweater knit out of novelty yarn and tape from old Rod Stewart cassettes. I found a perfect treat for myself after a lovely, long poke around the shop.

madelinetosh: Georgia O’Keefe. I got 2 of them and plan to make a matching hat/cowl set. In particular, I want to make Slable and the Jeweled Cowl. Here’s a shot of the cable within a cable detail of Slable that you can’t see in the official photos.

The sleeping compartment on the Amtrak train. It consisted of beds. Oh, and air. And a whole lot of us-ness.

Very wonderful, after years of reading Hercule Poirot, to sleep in a train.